Jun 3, 2010

Doin' a Heckofa Job, BP

In the long time honored tradition of putting one's foot into their mouth, especially when there's a live microphone around, BP is quickly catching up with Vice President Biden in the gaff and stupidity ranking.

BP initially estimated that between 1,000 and 5,000 barrels of oil were gushing into the gulf each day. The current consensus pegs the figure at between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels. At 44 days in, it is already the biggest spill in U.S. history, and with plan Double Q and the specter of the Obama Administration calling the shots... it hasn't been a good couple months for them.

And their CEO isn't exactly helping. Here's some of Hayward's bizarre statements that I've cut'n'pasted that he's stated since the accident:

On May 14, Hayward attempted to persuade The Guardianthat "the Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume." A drop in the bucket. Guess no one told him the East Coast gets a lot of shrimp from the area? Nothing pisses off people than inflated shrimp cocktail prices!

On May 30, Hayward was less bullish and decided to play the sympathy card. He told the Today show that "there’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back." In all fairness, he did apologize for that one.

On June 1, Hayward responded to claims that cleanup workers were being sickened by the fumes from the oil they were exposed to by suggesting another possible, non-oil-spill cause. When nine workers fell ill, according to Yahoo News, he told CNN that "food poisoning is clearly a big issue." Must be all that tainted shrimp from the Gulf?

But Hayward is not alone in his manful struggle to spin the news in the face of daunting factual evidence. His colleague Bob Dudley, managing director of BP, told NBC's Meet the Press on May 30 that "I think Tony's doing a fantastic job." Why on the planet Earth and good peer reviewed science would anyone ever paraphrase President George W. Bush's poorly managed Gulf Coast disaster, FEMA Director Michael Brown, "Doin' a heckuva job, Brownie"???